Thursday, August 30, 2012

Last year, also beginning of September, we had a back to school party and this year a "Day
after School Party". It is not only named "After School" because
that it is on a Saturday but also because the day before it is the birth day of
Maria Montessori.

Maria
Montessori

Born:31-Aug-1870

Birthplace:Chiaravalle, Italy

Died:6-May-1952Gender: Female

Religion: Roman Catholic

Location of death:
Noordwijk aan Zee, Netherlands

Remains: Buried, Noordwijk
aan Zee, Netherlands

Occupation:
Educator, Scientist

Nationality:Italy

Executive
summary: Founder of Montessori Education Method

Maria
Montessori is remembered as the founder of the famous Montessori Method of
education which emphasized hands-on, individualized learning within mixed age
groups in a child-friendly setting. Her teaching strategies and her discoveries
about the process of learning revolutionized the field of education in the United States and profoundly influenced
children's education all around the world. Despite the familiarity of her name,
few realize that much of the developmental, "hands-on" approach now
employed in preschools and kindergartens can be traced to the innovations of
Maria Montessori. Although best known as an educator, Montessori's formal
training was as a scientist and medical doctor. She is also notable for having
been Italy's first female M.D. For her committed efforts
on behalf of children, especially in the face of the fascism of World War II,
Montessori was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize (1949, 1950, and
1951).

Montessori
education is practiced in an estimated 20,000 schools worldwide, serving
children from birth to eighteen years old.

Montessori
education is characterized by an emphasis on independence, freedom within
limits, and respect for a child’s natural psychological development, as well as
technological advancements in society. Although a range of practices exists
under the name "Montessori", the Association Montessori
Internationale (AMI) and the American Montessori Society (AMS) cite these
elements as essential:

Mixed age classrooms, with classrooms for
children aged 2½ or 3 to 9 years old by far the most common

Student choice of activity from within a
prescribed range of options

Uninterrupted blocks of work time

A Constructivist or "discovery"
model, where students learn concepts from working with materials, rather than
by direct instruction

Specialized educational materials developed by
Montessori and her collaborators

Ironically,
Montessori's methods were not derived from any extant pedagogical wisdom. She
had in fact sidestepped the more traditional education path for women --
teacher's training -- in favour of science. But as an astute scientist and
quick-minded observer, she had soon discovered some important and, for the
period, revolutionary principles about children and the process of learning.
Among these was the notion that children have an innate drive to learn, and
that all on their own they are capable of amassing an incredible amount of
information and wisdom about the world around them. This was startling news at
the turn of the century as hitherto it had been assumed that children could
only learn through instruction -- or more specifically, from being lectured by
an adult.

School's
Out" is a 1972 title track single released on Alice Cooper's fifth album.

Cooper has said
he was inspired to write the song when answering the question, "What's the
greatest three minutes of your life?". Cooper said: "There's two
times during the year. One is Christmas morning, when you're just getting ready
to open the presents. The greed factor is right there. The next one is the last
three minutes of the last day of school when you're sitting there and it's like
a slow fuse burning. I said, 'If we can catch that three minutes in a song,
it's going to be so big.'"

Alice Cooper
(born Vincent Damon Furnier; February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer,
songwriter, and musician whose career spans more than four decades. With a
stage show that features guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, boa
constrictors, and baby dolls, Cooper has drawn equally from horror movies,
vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a grandly theatrical and violent brand
of heavy metal designed to shock.

Originating in
Detroit in the late 1960s, Alice Cooper was originally a band consisting of
Furnier on vocals and harmonica, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce on
rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and drummer Neal Smith. The original
Alice Cooper band broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971
hit "I'm Eighteen" from the album Love It to Death, which was
followed by the even bigger single "School's Out" in 1972. The band
reached their commercial peak with the 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies.

Furnier's solo
career as Alice Cooper, adopting the band's name as his own name, began with
the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare; in 2011 he released Welcome 2
My Nightmare, his 19th album as a solo artist, and his 26th album in total.
Expanding from his Detroit rock roots, in his career Cooper has experimented
with a number of musical styles, including conceptual rock, art rock, hard
rock, New Wave, pop rock, experimental rock and industrial rock.

Alice Cooper is
known for his social and witty persona offstage; The Rolling Stone Album Guide
has called him the world's most "beloved heavy metal entertainer".
Cooper is credited with helping to shape the sound and look of heavy metal, and
he is regarded as being the artist who "first introduced horror imagery to
rock'n'roll, and whose stagecraft and showmanship have permanently transformed
the genre". Away from music, Cooper is a film actor, a golfing celebrity,
a restaurateur and, since 2004, a popular radio DJ with his classic rock show
Nights with Alice Cooper.

Cooper has also
said the song "School's Out" was inspired by a line from a Bowery
Boys movie. On his radio show, "Nights with Alice Cooper," he joked
that the main riff of the song was inspired by a song by Miles Davis.

The lyrics of
"School's Out" indicate that not only is the school year ended for
summer vacation, but ended forever, and that the school itself has been blown
up. It incorporates the childhood rhyme, "No more pencils, no more books,
no more teachers' dirty looks" into its lyrics. It also featured children
contributing some of the vocals. "Innocence" in the lyric "...and
we got no innocence" is frequently changed in concert to
"intelligence" and sometimes replaced with "etiquette."

DJ Dean did rock the ocean with his tunes
and got the water boiling! Much new guest and I much busy with all kinds of
things during this event and not made much snapshots. So less pictures and no
names, no who is who under the pictures. I not want to confuse people that
follow my Blog, with mixed names. I am sorry. Okay one guest I want to mention.
Jaguar Pearl, a good friend, could come, in theme, to our event. Thank you,
Jaguar.

Yes, did flood the Island for this event, so the
pictures look different than I normally post.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

US astronaut Neil Armstrong, who took
a giant leap for mankind when he became the first person to walk on the moon,
has died at the age of 82, his family said on Saturday.

Armstrong died following complications from
heart-bypass surgery he underwent earlier this month, the family said in a
statement, just two days after his birthday on August 5.

As commander of the Apollo 11 mission,
Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon on July
20 1969. As
he stepped on the dusty surface, Armstrong said: "That's one small step
for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."

He once was
asked how he felt knowing his footprints would likely stay on the moon's
surface for thousands of years. "I kind of hope that somebody goes up
there one of these days and cleans them up," he said.

In the
latest commercial of Centraal Beheer Achmea by DDB leads an innocent flirt on
the water until an unexpected climax. The commercial is linked to an action on
Facebook. With a homemade Love Cruise trailer is chance to win a trip to Miami.

The story
of this "Even Apeldoorn bellen" movie goes as follows. During a boat
trip in a Sun-Sea-Beach holiday country has a young skipper, new (and blond)
meat in the bowl. He pulls out all the stops to impress his female
companionship. The whole box of tricks has to be opened, but then it seems to
go girl tack. Whether this is wise, remains to be seen. But it is certain that
it is a holiday never to be forgotten.

"Under the
Sea" is a song from Disney's 1989 animated film The Little Mermaid,
composed by Alan Menken with lyrics by Howard Ashman. It is influenced by the
Calypso style of the Caribbean. The song was performed in the film by Samuel E.
Wright. The track won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1989.

Disney Studio has been criticized for using Sebastian to portray
Jamaicans as lazy (under the sea, you don't need to get a job)...drawing
attention to the line:

"Up on the shore they work all day

Out in the sun they slave away

While we devotin'

Full time to floatin'

Under the sea! "

The song is a
plea by the crab Sebastian imploring Ariel to remain sea-bound, and resist her
desire to become a human in order to spend her life with Prince Eric, with whom
she has fallen in love. Sebastian warns of the struggles of human life while at
the same time expounding the benefits of a care-free life underwater.

Samuel E. Wright (born November 20, 1946) is an American film and theater actor and singer who is best known
as the voice of Sebastian in Disney's The Little Mermaid, for which he provided
the main vocals to "Under the Sea", which won the Academy Award for
Best Original Song. Wright also played the part of Mufasa in the original cast
of The Lion King on Broadway. Another accomplishment of his was voicing Kron
the Iguanodon in Disney's CGI film Dinosaur.

Jacques Cousteau was born June 11, 1910 in a small town called St.-Andre’-de-Cubzac, which is north of Bordeaux in France.
Cousteau always had a fascination with the sea and with the art of film making
and it would be these two interests that would shape his life forever. He began
a production company at the age of 16 which produced numerous films, often with
Cousteau himself playing the part of the villain in these silent pictures. He
joined the French Navy in 1930 because of his “love for water and desire to
travel and see the world.” However, in 1935, a serious automobile accident left
him partially paralyzed without the use of his arms. After 8 months of
intensive therapy, Cousteau regained the mobility in his arms and he began to
focus his attention on the underwater world.

In 1936, Cousteau pioneered the use of
waterproof housings for movie cameras and he shot his first underwater film. It
was in 1943, though, that Cousteau made what many consider to be his greatest
contribution to the effort of underwater exploration. Working with Emile
Gagnon, Cousteau developed the first SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing
Apparatus) regulator and, suddenly, mankind was free to “stay longer, go
deeper” and capture on film what he saw. For generations to come, the Oceans
would now be accessible to many and the sport of SCUBA diving was born.

In 1950, the next step in Cousteau’s dream
was fulfilled when he acquired the Calypso, a former minesweeper, and converted
her to an oceanographic vessel dedicated to exploring the ocean for scientific
purposes. The Calypso would faithfully serve Cousteau for 46 years, until she
would sink in a boating accident in SingaporeHarbor early
in 1996. Calypso’s maiden voyage, however, in 1950 would take Cousteau to the Red Sea to study Coral Reefs.

The ship is named after the Greek mythological
figure Calypso.

Cousteau died at the age of 87 on June 25, 1997 of a heart attack while recovering from a respiratory illness.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Sunday we travelled
back to the Middle Ages! Kings, squires, lords and monks filled the hot
Sweetgrass disco. DJ Frankie supplied us with appropriate tunes. Sitting on his
horse Aitalas watched all dancers of whom Cedric, Frankie, Gay, Honzo, Pietro
and himself won the contest. Congrats boys! You can see the pictures at